New consumer energy website lacks power players

Updated 1:10 am, Friday, August 10, 2012

Energy companies know that many of us have no idea how to shop for electricity.

Some of us don't even try. While that works out well for retail electricity providers that keep loyal customers year after year, CenterPoint Energy says it wants to change consumer habits. It's launched a new online service to help, which it says functions like online portals for buying plane tickets.

CenterPoint doesn't sell electricity. Instead it operates the distribution system that delivers the power regardless of which retailer customers use.

But the new website, www.mytruecost.com, has at least one drawback: The largest Houston retailer, Reliant Energy, isn't participating so far, and neither are some of its major competitors.

"There are other sites that give customers the tools to compare plans and choices," Reliant spokeswoman Pat Hammond said.

Separately, Reliant, retailer Direct Energy and two industry groups have complained to the state Public Utility Commission that the portal unlawfully links to the CenterPoint website and displays its name and logo. They argue that CenterPoint's sponsorship of the site will confuse consumers — many of whom already are a little fuzzy about exactly how they get their electricity in Texas' deregulated market.

Kept in the dark

Although most Texans have had the opportunity to change electricity providers since 2002, nearly half of them are served by their original providers, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.

CenterPoint says retailers opposed to the site may prefer to keep consumers in the dark, especially about hidden fees and charges. Its website helps explain those better than others, said Eric Sullivan, senior vice president of CenterPoint's energy services division.

"Clearly, there are retail providers out there who don't want customers to understand those," Sullivan suggested. "We're on the opposite side of the equation. We're trying to bring more clarity."

CenterPoint says its site allows customers to take advantage of information gathered by the smart meters it has installed throughout its nearly 2.2 million-customer Houston service area.

But the PUC, supported by some retailers, touts its publicly owned site, powertochoose.com, which allows consumers to find competitively priced plans available in their area.

"We feel that is the best independent source of information for shopping for electricity," said Terry Hadley, a spokesman for the commission.

In the neutral corner

CenterPoint says that it is a neutral party, too, as a regulated monopoly that owns the wires that transmit electricity. It doesn't generate or sell power but charges a standard fee to all retailers for delivering the electricity their customers purchase.

Mytruecost.com is intended as a revenue producer, but the company said it also views it as a way to help consumers find and buy the electricity plan most suited to their needs.

CenterPoint says the website is simpler and more useful than powertochoose.com and other options. The company charges participating retailers a commission, which it did not disclose, for each customer the retailer gets through CenterPoint's one-stop-shop website.

On the surface, the website offers the same types of price quotes visible on the state service. But if shoppers enter their smart meter numbers into CenterPoint's website, they can see exactly how much the different plans would cost them, based on historical usage, said Shane McLaughlin, CenterPoint's manager of mass markets. Even for customers on fixed-rate plans, base charges per kilowatt hour can vary if their use is above or below a specified range, McLaughlin said.

The state website displays average fixed rates for three different monthly usage levels. But those quotes could be off by as much as 60 percent from what a consumer's actual average rate would be, based on the customer's historical usage, McLaughlin said.

He cited an example where a specific plan's average rate appeared far different on the two sites. "It was like a 10-cent plan that showed up on (powertochoose.com), but if you didn't have the right usage it could be a 16-cent plan," he said.

"For most consumers, this highly technical data really doesn't make much difference," he said.

For now, the major shortcoming of CenterPoint's service, which launched last month, is that it doesn't list some of the most prominent plans.

Reliant Energy, TXU Energy and Direct Energy are not participating. Reliant said it has no plans to join the service. TXU said it is considering the idea. Direct Energy is not opposed to the site, as long as it does not reference CenterPoint with logos and links to its main website, spokeswoman Catherine Carlton said in an email statement.

She said such direct links "are not compliant with (PUC) rules, which prohibit regulated distribution utilities from offering competitive energy services."